LANSING, Mich., April 18, 2017 — The Lansing Schools Education Association, in partnership with the Lansing School District, is hosting a local segment of the National Education Association’s National Listening and Engagement Tour on April 19 from 5:00–8:00 pm at Pattengill Middle School (626 Marshall Street). School employees and families from all area districts are…
The Michigan Education Association this week announced the recipients of the 2017 MEA Scholarships, honoring exemplary public school students from across the state who will be attending a Michigan public university next fall.
By Brenda Ortega
MEA Voice Editor
The financial situation in Ypsilanti’s Lincoln Consolidated School District was dire when school employees stepped up to take hits for the team – absorbing job cuts, insurance premium hikes, pay reductions, and more in the hopes of restoring stability over a five-year period.
An old card catalog cabinet on its way to the scrap heap presented an opportunity for MEA member Deborah Lynch to start a fresh new program at Grosse Pointe Public Library, where she works as assistant circulation manager at the Ewald Branch.
By Brenda Ortega
MEA Editor
Certified school librarians are an endangered species in Michigan.
Even as politicians have toughened academic standards and passed a strict new third grade reading law, school districts across the state have cut professional library staff to balance budgets under pressure from state per-pupil funding cuts.
Little do her Michigan friends know, but MEA-Retired member Ruth Westbrook – who worked at schools in Pontiac, Highland Park, and Troy – has lived out scenes similar to the Academy Award-winning movie Hidden Figures. Westbrook, 76, followed in the footsteps of African-American women depicted in the film, human math computers at NASA who fought segregation and discrimination to build trailblazing careers at the space agency.
“Best practices” in teaching information literacy shift with the digital landscape, says Dr. Troy Hicks, an MEA member and professor of English and Education at Central Michigan University. Hicks co-hosted a March #MichEd Twitter chat on the subject at www.tinyurl.com/MILitChat.
Sen. David Knezek (D-Dearborn Heights) introduced a resolution late Wednesday demanding Gov. Rick Snyder return money illegally taken from school employees’ paychecks from 2010-12, the subject of a seven-year court battle led by MEA and AFT Michigan.
Your calls and emails have been working – House Bill 4163 to prohibit school calendar and schedule as a subject of bargaining has been slowed in its movement through the House.
